


lucky

by chrofeather



Category: Nightcrawler (2014)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen, Gun Violence, M/M, Poor Life Choices, bad decision making in general, could be lourick if you squint, on both rick and lou's part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 04:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20923862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrofeather/pseuds/chrofeather
Summary: “Rick doesn’t know why he still does it. He could quit, find another job, get out of this field before it’s too late. But he doesn’t. Maybe he feels some kind of responsibility for Lou, some obligation to keep him from doing something monumentally stupid simply in the name of success.”Rick knows that one day their luck is going to run out. He doesn’t expect it to come so soon.





	lucky

**Author's Note:**

> I know that probably 3 whole people are actually gonna read this but here it is anyway, because I'm weirdly into the unhealthy disaster dynamic these two have. I wrote this because the first time I watched Nightcrawler, I kept expecting something like this to happen for basically the entire film and it never did. 
> 
> Pretty much just a little exploration of what if something had gone wrong (because the potential was very much there and Lou definitely doesn't know when to leave well enough alone), along with a little bit of character introspection on Rick and Lou.

There are shots fired on the scene. It’s why they’re going: reports of multiple victims come over the police scanner, speaking of a nice neighborhood and a house with a garden, a break-in gone wrong. There are sure to be bodies. Blood. Drama. It’s perfect.

Lou drives the same way he always does: with manic, singular focus, like a knife sharp enough to cut, turns sharp enough to make Rick fear for his life. The Charger’s engine roars as Lou steps on the gas down a long stretch of highway, weaving in and around the relatively sparse traffic of half past midnight. He takes the next exit at Rick’s direction; that will put them just four streets over from the crime scene, and they fly through the residential neighborhood without regard for the posted speed limit signs.

Lou pulls up behind a cop car with its lights flashing and doors left open. “Park the car,” he tells Rick, eyes luminous and hungry even in the low light, and a shot cracks from somewhere behind the house. Rick flinches, but Lou just grabs the camera and darts off into the dark.

“Shit,” Rick says to himself, weakly. There is silence for approximately three seconds. Another shot rings out, and Rick shoves himself as low in the seat as possible, heart pounding. It didn’t sound any closer than the first one, but still too close for comfort.

Rick knows he’ll be safer far away from this mess. Taking a deep breath, he undoes his seatbelt and slides over the console, into the driver’s seat. He starts the car with shaking hands, backs out and parks around the block. Lights are already starting to come on in neighboring houses.

Rick just sits there, gripping the wheel, his stomach in knots. He hears cops shouting, indistinct, and three more shots ring out in quick succession, loud enough to make Rick flinch again. He’s sitting there breathing hard, squeezing his eyes shut as he tries to shut out the fear that he’s going to  _ fucking die _ doing crazy shit like this. 

This job is so not worth it. Not worth risking his life every other goddamn night to get gruesome footage that makes Rick queasy to watch, even as he’s filming. Rick doesn’t know why he still does it. He could quit, could find another job, hopefully get out of this before it’s too late. But he doesn’t. Maybe he feels some kind of responsibility for Lou, some obligation to keep him from doing something monumentally stupid simply in the name of success.

This probably qualifies as monumentally stupid, Rick thinks. He’s told Lou as much, before, but Lou doesn’t seem to listen. He never does. All of Lou’s ravenous focus is channeled into the next scene, the next murder, the next horrific accident. He doesn’t seem affected by it the way Rick does. There’s a strange, fevered light in his eyes when they’re on their way to the next accident scene or whatever the fuck else, a fixation like an animal chasing prey.

Lou has been gone for nearly fifteen minutes. It almost never takes him this long to get the shot he wants. 

Rick swallows hard. There haven’t been any more— _ fuck _ , there’s another shot, and he flinches again, his grip white-knuckle tight on the steering wheel. He’s sitting there in a cold sweat, dread pooling in his guts as his instincts scream at him to get the hell out of here. But instead, he waits.

Twenty minutes.  _ Shit. _

Rick swears under his breath and gets out of the car before he can talk himself out of it. This is stupid, it’s dangerous, he could get himself killed—but isn’t that a risk he takes every night he goes out with Lou?

Rick creeps around the block, back to the house, its white paneled sides still bathed in flickering red and blue lights from the cop cars. It’s deathly quiet except for the chatter of the police radio, and even that Rick can’t make out. He’s trying to keep his breathing quiet despite the fact that it feels like he can’t get enough air in his lungs, his heart pounding in his throat.

In the backyard, one of the cops is lying facedown in a pool of blood. Rick tries not to look. The glass patio doors are shattered, broken glass all over the porch and the entranceway, but there is no sign of the intruder. 

Crouched in the shadows of some shrubbery, Rick swallows hard. “Lou!” he hisses into the dark. “C’mon, man, we gotta get out of here…!”

No answer. There is the sound of footsteps crunching on broken glass, and Rick holds his breath. Shit, is Lou  _ inside _ the house…? He hopes it’s not the shooter. He can see the silhouette of a body on the floor, probably the homeowner. 

Rick lets out a breath he forgot he was holding as Lou’s familiar lanky form comes into view, holding the camera. He’s getting slow shots of everything: the broken glass, the blood, the fucking body laying on the floor.

“Lou!” Rick calls out, trying to keep his voice down for the sake of the neighbors, but he’s had enough of this shit. “Get the fuck outta there, man!”

Lou’s head jerks up, and he scans the backyard. It’s clear he can’t see where Rick is, not with the inside lights blinding him to the murky dark of the backyard. He lowers the camera, walks out onto the patio.

“Richard, why aren’t you with the car?” There is the barest hint of irritation to Lou’s calm voice, and Rick knows he’s pissed. But right now he doesn’t care, because they need to get the hell out of here before—

Another shot splits the night, much closer this time, enough to make Rick’s ears ring. He doesn’t remember if he screamed or not, his right ear momentarily deafened. 

He sees Lou jerk back with the force of the shot, sees him stumble and go down, cradling the camera to shield it from the impact.

There is a silhouette of movement from the back gate, a man running away, but Rick barely registers it. “ _ Fuck, _ oh, fuck, man, shit…!” 

Rick is on his feet almost before he realizes it, running across the yard on legs shaky with adrenaline. He kneels down next to Lou with no regard for the broken glass all over the ground, searching for where he was hit.

Lou’s eyes are wide, glassy and luminous against his gaunt face, expression frozen in surprise. 

“Shit,” Rick breathes. “Lou, man, where you hit? Y-you gotta talk to me, man…”

Lou’s mouth opens and closes, like a fish, and Rick thinks it’s the first time he’s ever seen the man speechless. Lou’s jacket is dark, and Rick unzips it with shaking hands, pulls it open to reveal the red stain spreading across his shirt from the upper right.

“Oh,  _ shit, _ ” Rick says, again. He’s vaguely nauseous just at the sight, but he pulls Lou’s jacket further aside, revealing the bullet wound in his right shoulder, just below his collarbone. It’s still sluggishly leaking blood, and Rick feels his stomach lurch.

More police sirens whoop from the front of the house, and Rick freezes. “We—we’ve gotta get out of here,” Rick says, eyes wide.

“Take the camera.” Lou’s eyes are locked with Rick’s with the same frightening intensity as always. The same hunger.

“Man, fuck the camera, we gotta get out of here, like now,” Rick says, trying to get a grip on Lou’s uninjured arm so he can pull him to his feet. Lou is still bleeding, but he seems entirely unconcerned by it.

Lou grabs Rick’s wrist, so tight it’s nearly painful. “Get the camera. We’re going.”

Rick grabs the camera.

Lou lurches to his feet with all the finesse of a coyote hit by a car, pale hand stained with blood pressed over the wound in his shoulder. His eyes are wide and blue and glassy, and he doesn’t say a word as Rick grabs his hand and practically drags him back to the car.

Lou grabs at the handle of the driver’s side door, smearing it with blood and leaning against the side of the door. He’s pale and wide-eyed, face covered in a sheen of sweat, listening to the wail of sirens on the other side of the block.

“I’m driving,” Rick insists, and Lou stares at him with those sharp blue eyes, perhaps vaguely surprised. He’s already tossed the camera in the back, glancing over his shoulder.

“I’m driving,” Rick repeats, more forcefully. “Fuck, man, we don’t have time for this!” 

Surprisingly enough, Lou allows himself to be led to the passenger side of the car, and Rick buckles his seatbelt for him while Lou keeps a hand pressed over the blood-soaked wound. Rick runs to the other side and practically jumps into the driver’s seat, peeling out of the neighborhood with a squeal of tires.

It’s past one in the morning. There shouldn’t be much traffic on the way to the hospital, Rick thinks.

Rick glances over at Lou as they’re flying down the highway. “Keep pressure on that, man. I-I’m looking for a hospital.”

Lou looks deathly pale, and it seems to sharpen the gauntness of his features, the gleam of his eyes. His hair has come loose from its bun, hanging in his face. “Richard. We are not going to the hospital.” He sounds remarkably steady for someone who just got fucking shot.

“What the fuck are you talking about? Man, you’ve gotta go to the hospital,” Rick insists, eyes wide. “ _ Shit! _ ” He swerves around a slow-moving blue Toyota, barely missing its mirrors. The vehicle’s angry honking quickly fades into the distance.

There will be questions at the hospital, yes, and Rick knows it, but isn’t it worth dodging a few questions if it means that Lou won’t fucking bleed to death or whatever?

“Take the next exit,” Lou directs. For the first time there is strain evident in his voice, but his gaze is as sharp as ever.

“What the fuck for?” Rick challenges. “You’re fucking bleeding all over the place, man!”

“It’s just a flesh wound, Richard,” Lou says, and Rick is almost tempted to believe him. Sometimes it seems like Lou is something more than human, something that lives on adrenaline and sharp edges and the intensity of pinning an ant under the gaze of a magnifying glass. It’s almost enchanting to see him bleed, to see him do something  _ human. _ “I am in no serious danger, as long as you do what I tell you. We talked about this, Richard.”

Rick swallows. Not for the first time, he wonders if Lou is crazy. He has to be, at least a little bit, to do this job. Rick doesn’t want to think about what that makes  _ him _ .

Rick takes the exit.

—

They go to sell the footage. For the first time, Rick goes inside with Lou at the KWLA news station, both to carry the camera and tape since Lou’s arm is messed up and to make sure he doesn’t collapse and crack his skull open or something. Lou’s dark jacket is zipped all the way up, and Rick hopes that no one notices the bloodstains soaking the fabric a darker black.

He’s introduced to Nina, whose eyes linger on Lou for just a moment longer than necessary, but she doesn’t ask questions.

“Jesus Christ,” she breathes when she plays the footage of the shootout and the home invasion on the screen. Thankfully, she only needs the first two minutes of the shooting and then the footage of the inside of the home.

“Good work,” Nina says to Lou, her dark makeup seeming even darker in the dimmed light of the AV room. “As always.”

Lou’s face is pale and gaunt, even more so than usual, and when he smiles it looks like he’s baring his teeth.

—

“Park on the street. Yes, there. Not too close to that sedan.”

Rick does as he’s asked, parking on the steep hill and killing the engine, feeling the car rock back on its brakes. 

The dark fabric of Lou’s sleeve is entirely soaked with slick dark liquid, and even in the dark of night Rick knows exactly what it is.

Lou leans on Rick as they make their way up the narrow stairs of the apartment building, his breathing harsh and shallow. Rick doesn’t even know what they’re fucking looking for, until Lou stops in front of a door and paws weakly at his pocket with his blood-soaked left hand.

“Keys,” he says, and the word comes out breathless.

Rick obliges and reaches into Lou’s jacket pocket to get the keys, fumbling until Lou tells him it’s the brass one, inserting it into the lock with shaking, bloodstained fingers. Vaguely, Rick realizes that this must be Lou’s place. He’s never been here before.

Inside the tiny, dark apartment, Rick manages to flip on the lights so he doesn’t trip and bring them both tumbling to the floor. He spots the couch on one side of the cramped living room and leads Lou to it, letting him sit down with his arm cradled against his chest, free hand still pressed over his bloody shoulder.

Rick is still panting from the exertion of helping Lou up the stairs, and he realizes he has no idea what to do now. He’s got no first aid training or anything. What the fuck is he gonna do now? Lou is gonna fucking bleed to death on his couch, and—and Rick will be out of a job, and—

“First aid kit is in the bathroom. Please get it.” Lou’s voice cuts through Rick’s anxious catastrophizing, sounding steadier than he has any right to after losing that much blood.

Rick goes and gets it, sits down next to Lou on the couch. “I’ve n-never done this before,” he admits with a breathless laugh. 

“Then this will be a valuable experience for you,” Lou says, and the level calmness of his voice seems at odds with the sickly pallor of his skin, hair sticking to his face with sweat. “I’m going to give you exact instructions, Richard.”

He does. 

Rick does his best to follow them, even as his hands shake and his stomach lurches. There’s so much fucking blood, more blood than Rick has ever seen, and by the time he peels Lou’s ruined jacket and shirt off so he can clean the wound, his own sleeves are stained with Lou’s blood.

Lou holds remarkably still while Rick cleans the wound and packs it with gauze. Rick only notices the minute trembling of Lou’s long pale hands, clenched into fists at his sides, after they are done. 

Rick’s hands are covered in blood, his shirt and jacket sleeves stained with it. Lou’s bloody jacket has been stuffed into a plastic grocery bag from the kitchen, discarded on the floor, but his ruined shirt remains on, unbuttoned and one sleeve cut entirely off so that Rick could get to the wound.

Rick sits back against the arm of the futon, feeling the curve of the wood digging into his lower back. He feels utterly drained, exhausted. It’s nearly two in the morning now. Normally they would stay out until damn near dawn, but Rick is starting to crash from his earlier adrenaline high, and all he wants is to wash his hands and curl up and go to sleep.

“Thank you, Richard.” Lou’s voice is quiet in the dimness of the little apartment. “Your ability to both follow necessary instructions and show initiative has not gone unnoticed, I assure you.”

Rick nods, too tired to do more, rubbing at his eyes with his forearm. Lou talks like he’s reading from a self-help book, but Rick isn’t even weirded out by it anymore. “You should still go to the hospital, y’know,” he murmurs. “Just to make sure there’s nothin’... like, I dunno, infected, or somethin’.”

He stands, sighing. “Well, uh, I’ve got a long walk back home,” he says, gesturing to the door. Really, he’s not looking forward to sleeping on the air mattress in his buddy’s garage, but at least it’s someplace to sleep. And he’s not going to ask Lou to drive him home in this state.

Lou’s eyes have never left Rick. He’s starting to look tired, but his eyes have that same almost manic intensity in them. “Where do you live?”

“Well, uh, I’m staying with a friend right now, on the North Side,” Rick says, shifting his weight. God, he’s so fucking tired. If he waits much longer, he thinks he might fall asleep on his feet.

“That’s a long walk, especially at this time of night. It would be safer if you stayed here.”

Rick is somehow surprised. He didn’t actually expect Lou to ask him to stay. Well, not ask so much as suggest. He swallows, finding his throat dry. On the one hand, he’s dead fucking tired, but there’s something about the idea of being here, asleep in the same room with Lou, that makes Rick’s skin crawl a little bit.

“I, uh, I don’t wanna be a bother,” Rick says, huffing out an awkward laugh. “I-it’s not that far.” There is no bedroom in the tiny apartment, just a narrow bed in the corner near the desk where Lou must sleep. Clean, utilitarian, though the linens are a bizarre pattern that likely came from a thrift store.

Lou’s eyelids are starting to droop, his gaze shifting to look out the window behind the TV, but his body language says that he’s still focused on Rick. “You’ve done some good work tonight, Richard. You certainly aren’t bothering me now.” 

He doesn’t even comment on the fact that on a normal night they could be chasing stories for several more hours, but that tells Rick how tired Lou must be. And really, Rick is grateful for it.

Somehow, it feels impolite to argue further. 


End file.
